Chenodia

Visâ re tam ridiculâ,
Et lanx cochleare raptavit.

GRUMBO GIGAS

Fee! faw! fum!
I smell the blood of an Englishman.
Dead or alive, I will have some.

Fe! fau! fum!
Sanguinem odoror Anglicum.
Seu vivum seu mortuum,
Bibendum est mihi aliquantum.

Φῆ! φοῦ! φῶν!
Αἵματος ὀσφραίνομαι τῶν Ἄγγλων·
Ἢ νεκρὸν ἢ ζῶν
Χαίρησω πίνων.

MILES REDUX

Who comes here?
A Grenadier.
What do you want?
A pot of beer.
Where’s your money?
I’ve forgot.
Get you gone,
You drunken sot.

Heus! Quis illic?
Ductor militiæ.
Quid petis hic?
Cantharum cervisiæ.
Ubi moneta?
Loqueris oblito.
O, ebriose,
In malum abito.

ANSERCULA

Goosey goosey gander,
Where shall you wander?
Up stairs, down stairs,
In my lady’s chamber.

Ansercula vagula, blandula,
Quæ nunc abibis in loca?
Sursum, deorsum,
In dominæ cubiculum.

LABOR ET CURA

Double double,
Toil and trouble.
Fire burn and
Caldron bubble.

Ingeminat labor,
Ingeminante curâ,
Cum flamma ardescit,
Aqua ebullitura.

notes

1

There appears to be some reason for believing that at least a century before Gammer Gurton’s works were published in England, a bodily “Mother Goose” was at work on the other side of the Channel. In Scott’s novel of “Woodstock,” chapter 28, Charles II., then a fugitive, says: “It reminds me, like half the things I meet with in this world, of the ‘Contes de Commère l’Oye.’” Not having been able to obtain a sight of “Commère l’Oye,” we must leave the original claim for authorship as a field for future controversy.